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Growing up, I didn't speak Spanish all the time, though my mother is a first-generation Mexican-American who speaks Spanish fluently.  Although she didn't actively teach my brother and me Spanish, she did use certain phrases and worked their way into our family's lexicon, just because in her mind, it was faster or easier to get the point across in Spanish than in English. By this point, I feel comfortable saying that I can read and write Spanish fluently, but I don't speak it all that often.  Even so, there are some of the same phrases of my mother's that I hear coming out of my mouth when I'm not thinking.  It's easier and faster for me to say "fíjate" than it is to say "look at that!", even if I didn't actually know that's what it meant in English.  Even though my husband doesn't speak Spanish at all, he's learned what some of the phrases mean just through the way I use them.  Similarly, I've picked up on a couple ...

Lo these many moons ago, I studied acting.  I took some classes at an academy in London for a semester in college, and one of them was called "Modern Physicality".  No, I don't know why that was the name - just go with it. A few weeks into the semester, we did an exercise in that class where we each walked around the room and eventually paired up.  Each person had to try to imitate their partner's walk, and in the end we had to perform this by walking around in a circle, while the rest of the class watched.  One person would walk normally, and the other would imitate their walk behind them.  The class would call out suggestions for improvement, and finally the original person would be pulled aside while their mimic would continue the imitation. I was paired with a woman who was fairly confident, and walked with a swing in her hips and her head up to face the world.  It took me a few tries to get the walk, because I had to fight my natural tendencies, bu...

A bit of a shorter post today, as I have many and many a thing to do before I flee for  GenCon .  This is the eighth or ninth year I've gone, and I always go as a demonstrator for  Asmodee Games .  It's a ton of fun, though a touch on the exhausting side, so who knows how much actual writing will get done this week? I've noticed that over the past ten years or so, while I've become more serious about my writing, I've also spent more time playing games (mostly board games and roleplaying games).  Both types of games have definitely influenced my writing, and my writing experience has influenced my game play.  I hope to get into this in more detail another week, but I'm curious - of those of you who write, do you also game?  Do you feel like there's an impact between one activity and the other? Have a good week, my friends!

I'm not sure about everyone else, but I have story idea overload on a regular basis.  Some image will come to mind, or a phrase, or a plot idea, and I know I need to grab onto it before it disappears back into the wild before I have a chance to do anything with it.  These ideas are plot bunnies, and they are hard as anything to wrangle sometimes. My main storage space is a Google Document (appropriately titled "Plot Bunnies") that I can access online and on my phone.  It's one of the easiest ways for me to jot down what I'm thinking of before it vanishes, and it gives me access to those ideas later if I get stuck.  Now, because I'm usually writing them down frantically while trying to get enough detail across that I'll know what I was talking about, there's a level of surrealism that pops up.  Things like "soul lever" and "honey blood" are just there, with no context whatsoever.  Admittedly, a lot of time there is no context to gi...